Who doesn’t love the idea of making money while lounging on the beach, drink in hand, enjoying the best that life has to offer? Sound’s incredible, right?!
Why can’t that be you?
“Affiliate marketing has made businesses millions and ordinary people millionaires.” – Bo Bennet
Let’s be real. It takes a lot of work to start making money while you lounge on the beach (also known as passive income), but, if you start building the right foundation today it is possible to make beach lounging money with Affiliate Marketing.
Plus you can start Affiliate Marketing today even if you’re brand new.
**Disclosure: The strategies in this post are for educational and informational purposes only. This post also contains affiliate links, which means that I may make a commission, at absolutely no cost to you, if purchase using my link**
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product or service, and someone from your audience purchases that product using your unique link. Then you receive a commission for the sale.
It’s a simple process that doesn’t cost the consumer a thing.
Affiliate marketing is a win-win for both the company and the affiliate. The company is getting increased exposure that can generate qualified leads, and drive sale conversions, while you are getting paid for talking about products you use and love.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing
Just about anyone can start affiliate marketing as long as you have access to a computer and the internet. Plus, you don’t need tens of thousands of daily clicks or millions of monthly visitors to make money.
“Since affiliate marketing allows you to generate revenue from selling other people’s products, it is one of the fastest and easiest ways to make an income online.” – Kayla Hollatz – content creator for creative entrepreneurs
There are many ways to get started with affiliate marketing. A great way to get started with Affiliate Marketing is with a blog. In fact, most affiliate programs require the URL where you will be promoting the product or service before they accept you into their affiliate program.
If you need to start your blog to get in on affiliate marketing, I can get you set up with Bluehost. It’s who I use and recommend. They also provide you a free domain name for a year at only $3.95 a month.
See what I did there? Yes, that is an affiliate link, but it was placed in an appropriate place, solving a problem with a product I use (more on the importance of this later).
You don’t need a blog to use affiliate marketing. If you already have an established audience on YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, or a lengthy email list, you can successfully start affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Disclosure
As an FYI, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) requires you to disclose if you are using affiliate links before the actual affiliate link itself (see the top of the blog post). Always.
That means that if you have affiliate links in your blog posts, the disclosure should NOT be at the end of it, it should be at the beginning.
If you are using a social media post for affiliate marketing, you should add a disclosure to the post itself. You have probably seen #Ad, Affiliate, or some other version of a disclosure on the post.
There is no reason to feel weird disclosing your affiliate links as long as you recommend a product that you actually use and believe will add value to your audience.
Trust is Key
Just because it’s easy to add an affiliate link to a post doesn’t mean you should start throwing affiliate links around like spam, that’s annoying.
People will click on your affiliate links when they trust you. If they don’t trust you, they won’t purchase anything you recommend, affiliate links, or not.
Think about it, are you highly likely to purchase something a random stranger recommends? Probably not. You are more likely to buy something your friend recommends.
You may not literally be best friends with everyone on your email list. But if you genuinely work to provide value consistently with insightful content, people will start to trust your opinion.
Your priority should always be to provide value with your content and then add in affiliate links where appropriate.
Additionally, you should always believe in and like the products and services that you promote.
Some programs may pay better than others, but if you hate a product, then your audience will probably hate the product. This means they won’t trust your judgment moving forward and will probably throw you a “Peace!” because there are plenty of other people on the internet.
Affiliate Marketing Strategies
There are lots of ways that you can use your affiliate marketing links to generate income. Here are a few you can use to get started.
Blog Posts
Blog posts are a great way to make money with your affiliate links because people get your honest opinion on a product, including your review and how you use it.
You may already know that people love to read reviews because they make buying decisions based on how good (or bad) the reviews are. When you provide your honest insight about a product or service, it increases the chance of a purchase.
It’s critical only to add links that are relevant to your readers, and the post itself. If you run a blog about cooking, it probably wouldn’t make much sense to start posting affiliate links for clothing or car parts.
Website Resources Page
If you run a business, you must be using products, services, and tools for it. Share them.
Here is a link to my resources page as an example.
Create a resource or business toolkit page specifically for linking all of the tools you use and recommend. Include all the products you use and links, whether you have an affiliate link or not.
For instance, if you use Quickbooks, and like it, see if you can become an affiliate. If you’re an artist and have a favorite paint brand, see if they have an affiliate program you can join.
If you believe in a product, then why wouldn’t you share them with your audience? Your goal is to provide value, and if a product is valuable to you, it will probably be beneficial for someone else too!
Email List
Email lists are an incredible and essential tool for any business.
The best part about email lists is that they include fantastic people who personally signed up to receive your emails because they trust you and think the content you share is brilliant.
Be sure to remember that your email subscribers signed up to receive your valuable content. Use your affiliate links wisely.
If you need to get started creating your email list, I love ConvertKit! It’s super easy to use, and your first 1,000 subscribers are free.
See how I added a relevant affiliate link to a product that I actually use and love.
How to Find Affiliate Marketing Programs
Not every company follows the same process to add affiliates to their programs, but the ones I have come across are similar.
Simply do a Google search with the name of product or service and add ‘affiliate marketing’ or ‘affiliate program.’
Generally the search results will bring you directly to the affiliate registration page.
Some companies have particular requirements to be accepted to their affiliate program. They may not take you unless you have a minimum number of page views or subscribers.
Once you have been accepted, you will receive your unique link via email or be directed to an affiliate login page to access your links.
Get started Affiliate Marketing Now
If you can make money while you sleep, why wouldn’t you? I’m not saying you are going to be making millions from it, but making $50, $100, or even more while sleep is pretty awesome.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money, and a great way to build your marketing skills. You will learn a lot about your audience while developing your digital marketing skills.
For more tips on how to market and grow your business, follow my new account on Pinterest!
